In The Line of Fire: Memories of a Documentary Filmmaker

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Chapter One

THAT NIGHT ON TWIST STREET

Hillbrow. Street after street of high-rise apartments, dominating the heights north of Johannesburg and reaching down to the railroad track that separates the city’s residential and commercial zones.

It was 1962 and, like many young whites starting out on their careers, I had chosen a Hillbrow bedsit as my first home. I had just graduated from Cambridge and was back in the country I loved.

When deciding to return, I believed – or wanted to believe – the message I was receiving from several sources, including my father, who had settled in the country twelve years previously. It was the notion that apartheid had evolved from crude discrimination into something entirely different. Black South Africans were now being granted self-government in independent homelands and encouraged to make their own contributions in industry, commerce and broadcasting. In schools across the country, their children were being taught their own history in their own languages.

It was a narrative that took me to a dangerous place.

Everything came to a head on New Year’s Eve 1964. On that night, a huge crowd had gathered on Twist Street, Hillbrow’s main thoroughfare, where the scene I witnessed at one of the main crossroads was breathtakingly. Blacks and whites were packed closely together; some of them even holding hands, as they waved their arms up and down in unison, chanting ‘Happy! Happy! Happy!’

After a year of disillusion and self-doubt, I was suddenly experiencing what ‘my country’ could be and rushed to join the celebrations.

Minutes before midnight, police drew up in cars and vans, doors were flung open, and uniformed officers jumped out with German shepherds on the leash.

Instantly, blacks and whites separated. On the white side, there was a sudden sense of shame, as though they had been caught red-handed, committing an indecent act.

But there was one man, standing near me, who refused to move: a tall, elderly African with both hands resting on a beautifully carved stick. In African society, these are often heirlooms, passed down from generation to generation – gifts of enormous significance.2

When the police saw that he was holding his ground, three of them (and a dog) headed straight for him. ‘Move, kaffir! Move!’ (‘Kaffir’ is the South African equivalent of the N-word, and just as demeaning.)

The old man didn’t remonstrate or even glance in their direction, but stood there in silence, back straight, eyes staring ahead. One of the policemen immediately shoved him in the direction of the other Africans. He stumbled and his stick fell to the ground. A second policeman grabbed it and, with an enormous effort, broke it across his thigh.

At that moment, something happened to me that I have never experienced before or since: a feeling of uncontrollable rage. I believe they call this ‘red mist’. Suddenly, I became a vicious, fighting animal, lashing out at the police without any thoughts about the consequences for the elderly African or for me.

And, of course, the police reciprocated. Thankfully, they did not take it out on the old man, but we were both arrested and shoved into a waiting police car.

Bruised and bleeding, I sat beside my new companion, while whites, who had been linking hands with their fellow countrymen moments earlier, were pressing against the car and shouting abuse at us through the closed windows. It was as if they had been woken out of a dream, a sweet dream, and now they were furious.

As we sat together, I pulled out a couple of cigarettes, lit one, and handed it to my companion, who took a deep drag.

It was an act of intimacy that incensed the whites even further. The car started to rock, and the police immediately moved in. I was pulled out, taken to another vehicle, and eventually driven to the nearest police station. When I asked where they had taken the elderly African, I was told that he was not guilty of any violence (true) and had already been released, something I was only able to confirm days later.

But the case against me was serious. I was guilty of assaulting two police officers, and the duty sergeant at the police station demanded an immediate statement.

What followed was as much of a surprise for him as it still is for me.

I explained that I was a film director, working for the Department of Information (i.e., South Africa’s propaganda ministry). I also warned the sergeant that I would be drafting a detailed report about police behaviour that night and submitting it at the highest level. If the officer wanted authentication, he should call this person at any time after 8.00am, and I scribbled a name and number on a scrap of paper.

I was released at 8.15am.

It had been an extraordinary journey. In June, I had been invited to a private meeting with the Prime Minister, Dr Verwoerd. Six months later, I was in one of his jails.

How on earth did I get there in the first place?

****

3I was born in India. When I was two years old, my parents divorced, and at the height of the war, Sheila, my mother, took me on the dangerous sea journey to England so that we could join her mother in an isolated slate cottage on the edge of Salisbury plain.

Sheila was just twenty-three years old at the time, strikingly beautiful, yet filled with anger and capable of lashing out at me if I ever put a foot wrong.

Mother and father in their India days.

After she broke with my father, she had formed a close friendship with another expatriate, Rufus T. Burton, a rising star in the American oil industry. They had stayed in touch by letter and the occasional telegram, but Rufus, as my mother told me later, ‘blew hot and cold’. She now faced two possibilities; a new and exciting future with someone she loved, or life in a remote country cottage, where she had virtually no contact with anyone her own age. It was a time of enormous uncertainty and tension, but everything changed – at least for me – shortly after my third birthday.

I remember that moment very clearly. I had been banished to my room for reasons I cannot recall, and was lying in bed, idly peeling paper off the wall, when my father’s parents walked into the room and introduced themselves.

‘But you mustn’t call us Grandpa and Granny. It makes us feel so old! I’m Elsa and this is Eddy’. At this point I was lifted off the bed and given a big hug, something my mother had never done.

I don’t know what discussions followed this visit, but on a wet winter’s night, my mother delivered me and a suitcase, packed with all my belongings, to Elsa’s and Eddy’s flat in Hove on the Sussex coast.

It was the beginning of a new life.

Elsa and Eddy created an atmosphere of openness and trust, wrapped in an all-embracing – literally all-embracing – love. In difficult times we had a ritual of throwing our arms around each other and shouting out: ‘The three of us against the world!’

With Eddy and Elsa.

Theirs was a marriage of equals, where the conventional gender roles were often 4reversed. Elsa, then in her late fifties, was the natural leader – impulsive, generous and strong-willed. She believed that anything was achievable if you set your heart on it, and it was a principle that would shape every decision I would make in life.

Eddy, a retired bank manager, was twelve years her senior and always a calming influence – quiet, sensitive and cautious.

I had been living with them for over a year when Sheila appeared at the flat in Hove. Apparently, Rufus had cabled a proposal of marriage and an invitation to bring me with her to the United States. (‘Will you and yours join me and mine this side?’ were his actual words!) I was in shock, but before the discussion went any further, Eddy guided me to my bedroom, where I stayed until my mother was ready to leave.

There are two versions of what happened next. According to my mother, she consulted my father in India and her own mother, and they both agreed that it would be kinder to leave me in the care of my grandparents.

Eddy had a different version. Apparently, Elsa booked an immediate meeting at the US embassy in London and was so persuasive that the consul finally gave Sheila a choice – a single visa for her or staying in Britain with me.

As I would learn later, no adoption papers or letters of agreement had been drawn up, and my mother had the legal right to reclaim me whenever she wanted. I am sure this was a major factor in Elsa’s and Eddy’s decision to leave England in 1946 and take me on the seven-thousand-mile sea journey to South Africa, a country they remembered fondly from their travels in the thirties.

Tickets were booked well ahead of time. The flat in Hove and most of the contents were sold and we moved into Green Gates, a quiet and secluded guest house on the edge of Worthing, a seaside town twelve miles from Hove. Most of the other guests were elderly, long-term residents, and the place had the feel of a retirement home.

The three of us had barely settled in when my father cabled with the news that he and his second wife, Molly, were on their way from India. This would be the first time in eight years that Eddy and Elsa had seen their only son.

From occasional remarks between Eddy and Elsa, I was aware of the tensions between them and Robert, known to his friends as Tommy. He had started his career at the main Cardiff branch of Lloyds Bank when Eddy was manager, but in 1930, at the age of twenty-one, he applied for a transfer to the bank’s Calcutta (Kolkata) branch.

Eddy and Elsa had visited him there during his second year and were not impressed. Tommy had always been a keen sportsman, but now he seemed to be taking things to extremes. As well as managing his own football team and devoting entire days to cricket, he had taken up polo with a passion. Of even 5greater concern was his reputation as a womaniser and notorious practical joker. On one occasion he had driven half a dozen goats through the basement of Calcutta’s Grand Hotel and into the lift, shutting the gate after them. It was clear to Eddy and Elsa that their son was not taking his career seriously, but their hopes rose when he returned to the family home in Whitchurch, a suburb of Cardiff, on his first leave.

The practice in colonial India was for British expatriates to take a six-month break every five years, which was time enough for Tommy to form a close relationship with Sheila, who lived with her parents a few doors down from Eddy’s and Elsa’s.

Sheila was a child of twelve when Tommy had last seen her. Now she was a beautiful seventeen-year-old, and Tommy was immediately attracted, but that was not the only factor. There was pressure from both families to bring this couple together. Eddy and Elsa were hoping that Tommy, once married, would finally settle down, while Sheila’s parents were planning to separate, and wanted to get their only child off their hands.

In June 1938, Tommy and Sheila were married in St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in Calcutta. Four years later, they separated. Although Eddy and Elsa were progressive in so many respects, their attitude to divorce was absolutely in line with the values of the time, and it didn’t help the situation when they heard that Molly Harrison, the woman Tommy had chosen as his second wife, was herself a divorcee.

Their visit to Green Gates, in the summer of 1946, was a disaster from the start. The two of them seemed determined to present themselves as a thoroughly modern couple, morally and physically different from Elsa, Eddy and the elderly residents of Green Gates.

Tommy was now in his mid-thirties, but still had the physique of an athlete. With his predilection for shorts, his Errol Flynn moustache and dark brown hair, brushed back and Brylcreemed to his scalp, he seemed cut out for the part he intended to play, but it was Molly who took the lead role. Six years Tommy’s senior and still a glamorous figure, she chose dangerously low-cut necklines and Katherine Hepburn slacks, which she even wore at dinner. She was also a strong character – almost, but not quite, a match for Elsa – and from the very beginning, she did her utmost to provoke her in-laws, while Tommy was happy to follow her lead.

It was the practice at Green Gates for the newspapers of choice to be laid out every morning on the guests’ breakfast tables. In this highly conservative milieu, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail were the popular choices, but Molly and Tommy ordered the Daily Worker, the Communist Party daily, which sat on their table for all to see.6

At one stage during their stay, they took me away for a few days, and it did not make things easy when I returned to tell Elsa that Molly had shared a bath with me and Tommy had given me my first shot of whisky.

The next surprise was the arrival of Nigel Harrison, Molly’s son by her first marriage. A shy, withdrawn fifteen-year-old, Nigel spent most of his time alone in his bedroom, painstakingly constructing model aircraft. Elsa was horrified to hear that Molly had farmed him out to her in-laws, and that this was the first time she had seen him since he was two years old.

An even greater crisis was precipitated by a casual remark from an old India hand, who checked in shortly after Molly’s and Tommy’s arrival. ‘Such a coincidence to find Molly Golton here’, he told Elsa. ‘We met a couple of times in Lahore, you know.’

Elsa corrected him. ‘Molly Harrison, I think you mean.’

The truth soon emerged. Tommy was Molly’s third husband. After her divorce from Nigel’s father, she had married Sydney Golton and given birth to another son, who was my age. He was being brought up in Jersey by Sydney’s parents, and Molly had made no plans to see him.

Elsa was appalled; not only by the double divorce and the subterfuge, but also by Molly’s cold-hearted attitude towards her two sons. The only compensation she could take was the certainty that someone with Molly’s feelings towards children was hardly likely to press Tommy to reclaim me.

How wrong she was!

I don’t recall how and when Molly’s and Tommy’s visit ended. My next clear memory is the train journey with Eddy and Elsa to Southampton, passing bombed-out buildings on the greyest of grey winter days. For the next four years, it would remain an enduring image of England.

The three of us sailed on the Carnarvon Castle, a passenger liner that had been converted to a troop ship during the war but was not yet restored to its original state.

The ship was crammed to bursting point; thousands of people, desperate for a new life in a sun-lit paradise far, far away from the grim realities of post-war Britain. All male passengers had to sleep in a single, massive cabin with rows of bunks stacked on top of each other and served by ladders that ran from floor to ceiling. Eddy, who had just turned seventy, was given a bunk close to the floor, while Elsa and I shared a cabin with half a dozen women and their children. It was always noisy, and as we moved towards the equator the heat became insufferable.

Finally, on a still summer’s night, two weeks after we had left Southampton, we docked in Cape Town, where friends of Eddy’s and Elsa’s met us and drove us to our new home – the Radnor Hotel, Green Point.7

Today, Green Point is a densely packed Cape Town suburb, and the Radnor is no more, but in 1946 it stood in glorious isolation, an art deco creation with a huge garden and, beyond that, an open common running down to the sea.

We had only been there for a few days when Eddy and Elsa bought a black Ford Prefect, the first car they had owned since the outbreak of war. (Number Plate CA 48875, as I well remember.)

Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Its setting at the foot of Table Mountain is breath-taking, and now we were free, free to explore the city and its surroundings; free to take the cable car to the top of Table Mountain; free to drive through the glorious winelands to the east or follow the mountain road south to Cape Point, stopping on the way at beaches we sometimes had to ourselves. It was the most wonderful chapter of my childhood, and I fell deeply in love with South Africa.

At that stage, of course, I had absolutely no understanding of politics or any experiences that might have made me aware of the injustices and tensions in this country. The few thoughts I had were shaped by my grandparents.

Unlike many of their class and generation, Eddy and Elsa were not racists. They didn’t believe that non-whites were of inferior stock. The worst that can be said is that they were complacent. They understood that the basic problem for the majority in this country was lack of education and opportunity, but they also believed that the British Empire was an altruistic institution, steadily raising standards across the vast territory it administered. One day, they were sure, there would be genuine equality. It was only a question of time.

But how much time? That was never said.

The National Party victory in the 1948 elections came as a shock to them both. Part of this, of course, was resentment that the leadership of the country had been taken away from the largely British United Party and was now in the hands of ‘ignorant’ Afrikaners.

There was also a strong response to the Nationalists’ political slogan. ‘Apart Hate’, Elsa kept repeating, shaking her head in disbelief, but it wasn’t long before we were distracted by more personal issues.

Six thousand miles away in Calcutta, Molly and Tommy had made a decision. The violence that preceded and followed partition finally convinced them that it was time to leave.

They had originally thought of Kenya, but a couple they befriended on board ship persuaded them that South Africa was the country of the future, and instead of disembarking at Mombasa, Molly and Tommy remained on board until they reached Durban, the next stop. A big factor in this decision was an invitation from their new friends to stay with them in their family home in Pietermaritzburg, the 8provincial capital of Natal, and to use this as a base while they assessed local conditions and opportunities.

Molly came from a wealthy family, and the money was there to buy Tommy a partnership in the Pietermaritzburg branch of a stockbroking business headquartered in Johannesburg.

Eddy and Elsa had been kept in touch with all these developments, and I could tell from their reactions that the atmosphere was improving. When we received news that Molly and Tommy had bought a home in Pietermaritzburg and would be settling there, a big decision had to be made. Should we join them?

Elsa and I were dubious, but Eddy felt strongly that this was the right thing to do. I was only nine years old, and they were an elderly couple. Anything could happen in the future, and it was important that I be given a chance to form a good relationship with my father and stepmother. Who knew when I might need them?

In August 1949, we uprooted and sailed to Durban with our faithful Ford Prefect in the ship’s hold. It was the only time I can remember when Eddy had prevailed.

Molly and Tommy were at the port to meet us, and immediately suggested lunch together at a seaside hotel before we set off for Pietermaritzburg.

This was not the same couple that had burst into our lives three years earlier, and I was excited to see the change. Molly and Elsa got on so well that they decided to travel to Pietermaritzburg together in the M&T Studebaker, while Eddy, Tommy and I followed in the little Prefect.

Within a matter of days, I was registered as a weekly boarder in a prep school a few miles from Pietermaritzburg, while Elsa and Eddy moved into a country hotel nearby. It was agreed that I would spend alternate weekends with each couple and that holidays would be similarly divided.

All seemed to go well at the start, but on one of my weekends with Tommy and Molly, he suggested that we should stop at his office on our way back to school. Molly, who normally accompanied us, would be staying at home. I assumed that my father had to catch up with some work. It certainly didn’t occur to me, as I kissed Molly goodbye, that this was the last time I would see her for eleven years.

Once inside his empty office, Tommy flicked on the lights and gestured me to a couch. I had a sudden premonition.

‘Has something happened to Eddy – or Elsa?’

He shook his head. ‘No. They are both well, but I want to talk about something that affects all of us.’

He sat beside me, and I felt a tightening in the stomach.9

‘Antony, you are very happy here. You are doing well at school and really settling in, but the situation is different for Eddy and Elsa. They love Cape Town and I know how much they miss it. For their sakes, I feel they should go back.’

‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

A long speech followed. Tommy wanted me to know that I was his son and that the time had come to ‘phase your grandparents out of your life’ and live permanently with him and Molly. ‘Of course, you can always visit Eddy and Elsa – maybe two or three times a year.’

I was completely unprepared for this. Everything seemed to be going so well between the two couples. Why this sudden demand to break us apart? I was speechless, but the expression on my face must have told Tommy everything he needed to know.

At this point, he changed tack and presented me with some hard facts. For the first time in my life, I learnt that no adoption papers had been drawn up and Eddy and Elsa had no legal right to keep me.

‘Those rights belong to your mother and father.’

I managed to whisper: ‘But Molly isn’t my mother.’

Then came the final shock. Tommy had been in touch with Sheila, who was now living in the United States. She was willing to grant Molly and Tommy the full legal rights to adopt me.

I don’t think I said another word on the drive back to school.

Immediately Tommy had dropped me off, I told the housemaster that I had to deal with an emergency, a family matter, something very private. Could I please use his phone? He had the good grace to leave the room. Once I was alone, I called Elsa and told her everything that had happened.

‘So, what do you want to do?’

‘I never want to see them again.’

‘That’s very serious. Are you sure you mean it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we’ll make a plan.’

A couple of days later, I was playing with friends during a class break when one of the boys ran up and pointed to the steep bank of trees that rose up on one side of the yard.

‘Someone up there wants to see you.’

I knew at once who this would be and climbed the bank. There was a dirt road at the top where Eddy and Elsa were waiting with the Ford Prefect parked beside them. The roof rack was loaded with luggage.

‘Go back down,’ Elsa said. ‘Pick up as many of your things as you can without arousing suspicion and join us here.’10

‘Where are we going?’

‘Cape Town.’

It was a journey of almost a thousand miles, and it took the better part of a week. As we passed through areas of ravishing beauty – the Transkei, the Garden Route – we often entertained ourselves with boisterous singing. Our favourite was courtesy of Rudyard Kipling.

‘On the road to Mandalay,

Where the flyin’ fishes play,

An’ the dawn comes up like thunder,

Out of China ’cross the Bay!’

Once we reached Cape Town, life quickly returned to normal. We were back at the Radnor, and I was readmitted to my old school. I don’t know what communication passed between Eddy, Elsa and Tommy, but my father made no further attempt to reclaim me.

Nine months after we returned to Cape Town, our whole world crashed. Just a week after my tenth birthday, Eddy died of a sudden heart attack.

I was stunned by the news. Elsa, of course, was the dominant power in this relationship and the one who usually made the decisions that affected our lives, but Eddy had played an equally important role in my life. He was sensitive and perceptive, and seemed to have an intuitive understanding of any problems and difficulties I might have, even before I was able to articulate them myself.

In many ways, Eddy performed the maternal role, reading me bedtime stories, and quietly consoling me when things were difficult. Elsa’s approach was different. From a remarkably early age, she treated me as an adult, sharing family problems and asking me to make my own decisions, whenever possible. This was a great compliment, but there were times when it was also helpful to have someone with whom I could share moments of weakness and doubt.

Eddy’s death was a shattering blow to both of us, and Elsa seemed to age in an alarming way. Grief, of course, was the major factor, but she also had serious financial worries. With characteristic frankness, she told me that they hadn’t prepared for a crisis like this. Now that Eddy’s bank pension was suspended, all she could expect was a widow’s allowance of four pounds a week and an additional two-and-a-bit pounds from the capital they had patriotically invested in ‘War Loan’, which had plunged in value. We certainly couldn’t afford to remain at the Radnor. Our only option was to return to England, where she had relatives and friends to turn to.

I was devastated.

Neither of us considered returning to Pietermaritzburg and trying to re-establish relationships there, but this did not stop Elsa appealing to Tommy 11for help. To his credit, he offered to contribute £15 a month towards my upkeep (equivalent to £360 today). Not a huge amount, but enough to save us from dire poverty.

Elsa’s plan was to go back to her childhood roots. She had been in touch with her eighty-six-year-old aunt, Louie, who lived alone in a large Victorian house in Norfolk, and a deal was struck. If Elsa was prepared to do the housework, shopping and cooking, we would both be welcome to stay with her for as long as we wanted.

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Chapter Two

AGAINST ALL ODDS

During our time in South Africa, I was not aware of any attempts by Eddy or Elsa to communicate with my mother or she with them, but after Eddy’s death, Elsa wrote to Sheila’s mother, Margaret, telling her about our plans, and when we docked at Southampton in late August 1950, Margaret (or ‘Panny’ as the family preferred to call her) was at the port to meet us.

We had half an hour together in the waiting boat train before the start of a journey that would take us via London to Hunstanton and Aunt Louie. The atmosphere between the two grandmothers was cordial, if not exactly warm, and most of the time was spent catching up on family news. Panny had sold her country cottage and was now living in Salisbury.

For the first time ever, I learnt that I had two half-sisters, a half-brother and a stepfather, Rufus T. Burton, a senior executive in the American oil industry. After a short stint at company headquarters, he had returned to India with the family to take on the dual role of Head of Esso Standard Eastern and Regional Co-ordinator for the Standard Vacuum Oil Company.

All this seemed worlds away from the life Elsa and I were now facing, and we were both hungry and exhausted when we arrived at Aunt Louie’s late that evening, only to find that the larder was almost empty. The following day, Elsa did a mammoth shop, but on her return, Aunt Louie singled out items she considered ‘extravagant’. Elsa was given two choices: either take them back or pay for them herself. She chose the second option.

Elsa’s first priority was to secure a place for me at the local council school, where the new term was due to start in a few days. We went there together to meet the headmaster, and after a short verbal test I was given a place. I liked the school and was happy to go there, but I could see that Elsa was troubled.

My greatest concern, though, was my great-aunt. Yes, she was mean, but she was also hostile, particularly towards me. She didn’t like the frank and open way Elsa and I communicated with each other. In her opinion, it showed disrespect on my part and misjudgement on Elsa’s. Children were to be seen, not heard, and they certainly were not supposed to contradict adults or to have opinions of their own.13

My escape to school on the first day of term came as a relief, but when I returned that afternoon, I sensed Elsa’s distress. She asked how the day had gone, but before I’d had a chance to reply, out came a stream of apologies and regrets. She felt she had let me down in the most shameful way. No member of our family had ever been to a state school. Haileybury, Oundle, Sherborne – any one of those would be right for me, but not the local council school in Hunstanton.

I almost screamed at her: ‘But we can’t afford them, any of them!’ Aunt Louie rose to her feet and left the room in disgust.

The very next day, Elsa was off. Public school terms usually start a few weeks later than state schools, and she was determined to get me into a prep school of her choice before the beginning of the school year. I don’t know how she managed this, but within a week, she had secured a place for me at Sherborne Preparatory School in Dorset. We packed our things and made the move, but the financial implications were serious.

School fees were nearly double the allowance Tommy was sending. To survive, Elsa would have to look for work as a cook and cleaner, focusing on farms, where I could contribute to my upkeep during the holidays by feeding animals, sweeping stalls and doing whatever odd jobs were required.

As she scrubbed floors and washed dishes, Elsa’s dignity and self-confidence were never shaken. A typical example was her response to the Baxters, who had agreed to take us on during my first school holiday. I wasn’t present during Elsa’s first meeting with the family when terms were presumably agreed: three pounds a week for her and free board and lodging for both of us, provided I was always available for work on the farm.

It was only when we moved in that we discovered another condition. No food would be provided for the three resident servants – Elsa, me and Jill, a young Australian who took care of the horses. We would take our meals in the kitchen and could eat whatever was left over from the family table. I expected Elsa to walk out the moment she heard this, but she chose to express her anger in a different way.

When the time came for our first lunch, Elsa followed house rules and scraped the family leftovers onto our plates. Anything we rejected was put into two large dog bowls in a corner of the kitchen.

Later that afternoon, I became suspicious when Elsa started preparing two of my favourite dishes, roast lamb and treacle